Tag: Apple

The Joys of Two-Timing

As a late-blooming watch nerd, I didn’t think much of smartwatches at first. I owned one, though it was a bit of an outlier—a Polar M600, which was more of a running watch than anything else. The M600 did its job well (though not on a treadmill, where it couldn’t track distance) but I never really used its smartwatch features. I preferred “real” watches: high-value-for-dollar Seikos, tough-as-nails field watches, Swiss steel chronographs.

(I also owned the original Pebble Classic, arguably the first smartwatch. Chunky, all plastic and quite lovable. Also quite capable—I still have it and still wear it now and then, fashion be damned.)

Pebble Classic—the smartwatch that started it all.
Pebble Classic—the smartwatch that started it all.

All of this changed when I purchased an Apple Watch Series 5. Although I’d been curious about the Apple Watch for a while, it wasn’t until the 5 came out that I was tempted to purchase one. The always-on screen was a huge factor in this decision, as were the favorable reviews on high-end watch sites such as Hodinkee.

Since I was already planning a privacy-based transition from Google/Android to Apple products in general, I purchased the Apple Watch 5 along with an iPhone 11 and the latest iPad Mini (the latter is mainly for reading e-books).

The amazing Apple Watch Series 5. Too good to leave at home.
The amazing Apple Watch Series 5. Too good to leave at home.

As many have discovered before me, the Apple Watch is an amazing device. Well-designed and stylish, as you would expect from Apple, but extremely capable and versatile as well. It has beautiful watch faces, yes, but it also has a wide range of digital complications (extra features, in watch parlance) that you won’t find in the analog world. These let you discreetly check the weather, stock prices, your heart rate, news headlines, messages and a whole host of other things. I was astonished to discover that you can have conversations with the thing, a la Dick Tracy. I didn’t purchase a GPS + Cellular model but as long as you’re connected to wi-fi you can use your watch as a phone, at home or elsewhere.

You can also use your watch to monitor your health, particularly your heart health, with its ECG app, and use it as a really good fitness device, too (Apple Watch Series 5 does measure distance on a treadmill, and does so pretty accurately). You can use this watch for so many things, in fact, that it is hard to imagine not wearing it.

That’s why some watch aficionados have started a trend called “double-wristing”—you wear your traditional classic analog watch on one wrist and wear your Apple Watch 5 on the other. I prefer the term “two-timing,” and I’ve become a strong advocate of the practice. The Apple Watch 5 is simply too good to leave at home, but then so are your exquisitely crafted analog timepieces, which offer unique pleasures of their own. Wear both, and experience the richly sensual joys of two-timing.

Enlist your significant other as well—that will give you a foursome, and a sexier experience still!

Do Writers Need Writing Software?

Update, 1/31/2020: it should be noted that the abandoned Scrivener Linux beta, version 1.9.0.1 with no expiration date, is still a valid option. Scrivener 3 on Mac or Windows can export to the version 2 format, which the Linux beta version can read, so you can go back and forth between platforms. At least for now. You’ll want the AppImage version, available here.

Do writers actually need specialized “writing software” such as Scrivener? Or is the publishing industry’s standard word processor, Microsoft Word, sufficient unto itself?

The questions above have been making the rounds for a while now. When specialized software for “creative writing” first began to appear a decade or so back, there was a definite stigma attached to such software by professional writers. This piece in The Atlantic by Scrivener creator Keith Blount, from 2011, sums that stigma up nicely.

Even today, in the third decade of this troubling new century, the question is not entirely resolved. But I don’t believe it remains particularly relevant. Most writers have acknowledged the usefulness of Scrivener and its competitors, even if they stick with Word or (in some cases) don’t use a computer to write at all.

Is Word alone enough? For some writers, yes. For many others, no. Word logo © Microsoft.
Is Word alone enough? For some writers, yes. For many others, no. Word logo © Microsoft.

R. O. Kwon, whose debut novel The Incendiaries received very strong reviews, told me she investigated Scrivener but found its complexities too distracting and decided to stick with Word. For her, that was obviously the right choice. Michael Chabon, on the other hand, has credited Scrivener (along with iA Writer, DEVONthink, Nisus Writer and numerous Apple products) in the creation of his work.

The more relevant question today, then, is how can writers make sure today’s technology works for them, rather than the other way ’round. And this question was prompted by a recent experience I had with Scrivener itself, which remains the most popular (and capable) program of its kind.

When I reviewed Scrivener 3 a couple of years ago, I was running it on both macOS and Linux (via Wine). I continued to so until quite recently—the Windows beta ran fine under Wine until late last year (Beta 30, I believe). For whatever reason, the developers upped the .NET system requirements and I have not found a way to get the program running again on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. What’s more, I spent far too much time trying. This was time wasted, which I regret. One should never follow technology down a rabbit hole, and I did precisely that.

It’s true that, these days, every minimally conscientious citizen needs to pay some attention to the software they run, both for ethical reasons and to protect themselves from the surveillance state (and surveillance capitalism), to the extent this is possible. That’s why I recently moved from Android to iOS, and why my main computing platform will continue to be macOS. Apple is not without serious ethical flaws (Asian labor standards, tax policies, Chinese censorship, et al.) but they do seem to be the best commercial platform from the standpoint of privacy and security. And by and large, their stuff does “just work.” I run Linux to avoid being completely captive within Apple’s attractive walled garden.

But since my main focus these days is writing, I don’t have time to screw around with software configurations, as I mistakenly did trying to get Scrivener running again on Ubuntu. Past a certain point, the technology has to defer to the writing. No more Scrivener on Ubuntu unless or until it simply works under Wine, which may very well be never.

And that brings us back to the original question of whether specialized writing software is necessary for writers. From an absolute standpoint, the answer is of course “No.” But from the standpoint of convenience and flexibility, I find Scrivener to be invaluable. Syncing a story or poem from my Mac to my iPhone via Dropbox is an almost ideal way to proofread and revise—there’s something about the iPhone’s smaller screen that enhances focus wonderfully. And as Chabon noted in the interview cited above, Scrivener remains by far the best program for long-form writing.

I’ll still run Linux as an escape hatch now and then, and I’ll occasionally even write on my Linux laptop: LibreOffice Writer is more or less equivalent to Word on my Mac, and there are many open source writing programs that run fine under Linux. I’m disappointed in the Scrivener developers for abandoning their original intention to support Linux and then breaking compatibility with Wine after a long run of successful betas. Such is life; this is definitely a minor first-world problem.

For me, though, Scrivener in conjunction with Word or Writer continues to be indispensable. At least until something better comes along.